Heaven's Weight
by ArwenJaneLilyLyra
Summary: 'I didn't promise it would all be ok, because we both knew better than that. We just – lay there, waiting for his last breath.' ... Eames is gone. Things haven't changed much. (Except for everything, of course.)


**Heaven's Weight**

' _I didn't promise it would all be ok, because we both knew better than that. We just – lay there, waiting for his last breath.'_

 _Eames is gone. Things haven't changed much.  
(Except it's different, all of it. It all feels so different, now.)_

Ariadne Warren falls in love with Jacob Herveau.

(It's not quite Jason, but it's close enough, and people laugh, sometimes, and that's nice.)

Jacob has big eyes, like chestnuts, and they are full of something that Ariadne latches onto with a passion she thought she had saved only for brick and mortar. He's loud, because he has four brothers and a sister.

He's fast, too, for similar reasons. He tells her why on their second date, which is to Disneyland, because they live in Paris and because like Ariadne, Jacob Herveau doesn't do half measures.

She thought inception might have obliterated the prospect of romance from her radar, the intricate web and threads of love lost in the tangle of paradoxes and IV tubes and radical, impossible things.

In the terror cast by Mallorie Cobb's shadow, she had forgotten that love can be not only radical, impossible, but _wonderful,_ too.

.

.

 _Do you know what it is to be a lover?_

Yes, Ariadne thinks now. I know, and it is wonderful.

.

.

Four months after the Fischer job Arthur calls with another job offer. It's the first contact they've had since the baggage claim at LAX, and even that had been such brief eye contact it was as if they were less than strangers.

Ariadne accepts. This time she builds only one level, which seemed boring at first but apparently one level is more than enough to keep her occupied.

There is an underground maze of tunnels that are barely touched when they run the job, but the whole time she's under she knows it's there, and that's enough.

Like love, she finds a few short months later, when she's known Jacob barely a month but she feels him in her bones every second of every day.

.

.

'You've got a tan,' is the first thing Ariadne says when Arthur opens the door of his rented Paris apartment.

(He was cold and professional and dismissive on the phone, but he still decided to run the planning here, where she can attend the classes she can't afford to miss. She doesn't point this out.)

'It's hot in California,' is his reply, as if he's ever shown any inclination to sunbathe before.

'How's Cobb?' she asks instead of the million questions buzzing through her head, about the job and about Robert Fischer and about why Arthur has a _tan._

'Fine. Settling in. He's a parent.'

What a wonderful adjective that word can turn itself into when it wants. _Parent._ It conjures a warm, welcome image that isn't so far from the frantic fumbling of the man she'd watched pass without complaint through border control four and a half months ago.

'That's good.' She smiles around the words, and she glimpses one of Arthur's hidden smiles, too, faintly ghosting his face.

'Yeah,' he replies. 'It is good.'

It's a two person job and they complete it in three weeks and then he's gone again and there's a hefty sum of money in her bank account and before the week is out a man in Luxembourg files for divorce.

She never found a chance to ask about the tan.

.

.

The last time Ariadne Warren sees Eames, it's in Dar es Salaam. Not for the first time, he tries to explain why he can speak Arabic fluently but can't read a word of it. Not for the first time, she laughs and the ice in their drinks rattles when they cheer each other.

They wait for the rest of their team to join them in a healthy state of ecstasy that Ariadne is becoming addicted to. Eames assures her it's the same as any other dangerous addiction, but by far the best of the lot.

He speaks with the conviction of a man who knows his addictions, and Ariadne believes him.

The last time she sees Eames he is in high spirits, and his hair is lighter than it had been two years ago when they met in a warehouse in Paris, and she's so grateful she cries the first time the anniversary of it rolls around after he's gone.

.

.

(She has a hard time deciding whether gone sounds better or worse than _dead.)_

.

.

 _Ariadne, I can't talk right now._

Is it true?

 _Ariadne, now's not the time._

Yusuf called me. Yusuf, Cobb. How am I –

 _Ariadne, this isn't the time. I'll call you tomorrow._

Will there be a funeral? Do dream criminals even get funerals?

 _Goodbye, Ariadne._

.

.

(Either way, he's dead and he's gone and her heart is not so much broken as shattered and not even Jacob can settle the aftershocks of the blow.)

.

.

Eames dies on a Thursday morning, when the sun is technically rising but the sky's so thick with rain clouds it doesn't matter. It's dark when he closes his eyes.

Or rather, it's dark when the glint of light leaves them, and it's still dark when Arthur closes his lids with his shaking, bloody fingers a minute later.

.

.

Years ago, Arthur left college because he was bored. He left when the first person to break through the heavy blanket of monotony that had dampened his world his whole life offered him the chance for something more.

He gave up a good scholarship and an economics degree and a roommate he actually quite liked and a boyfriend who wasn't really a boyfriend at all. In exchange he was given what he had never thought to ask for.

.

.

(He was given _dreams.)_

.

.

'Tell me,' Ariadne pleads.

The fact that she has resorted to pleading is distressing, but her frustration has finally triumphed over her pride. She's always been too nosy for her own good.

'Ariadne,' Jacob squirms.

She's pinned him to the couch, and his hands are very warm as they paw at her distractingly. She almost, almost forgets…

'Jacob, tell me,' she says, gripping his wrists and pulling them wide out to both sides as she straddles his legs, locking them tight when he tries to wriggle into a better angle.

'It's bullshit. It's got to be bullshit,' he dismisses.

He hasn't looked her in the eye for seven minutes.

'Then tell me. What's the harm in telling me?'

He fidgets a moment longer (a very, very long moment longer, she notes) before everything in his body goes limp with defeat. Their foreheads find one another, where they rest and smile.

'It's called – it's about, like – it's like, being able to build things in dreams.'

Jacob's too nervous to notice the smile on her face slacken.

She's too numb with shock to feel it.

.

.

The last thing Arthur says to Eames is _goddamn you, Eames, you're a selfish bastard._

After that there's silence.

Silence from Arthur, at least.

Eames gasps and moans and chuckles a throaty, gritty laugh that bleeds from his shredded lips. Lips that Arthur has kissed clean a thousand thousand times, but never again.

Then he dies.

.

.

Ariadne gets a call from Pauline, an extractor she has worked with twice before, and she accepts the job without asking for many details. Jacob drives her to the airport, and when she kisses him goodbye it's more desperate than it's ever been before.

Absence cannot possibly make the heart grow fonder, she thinks as she curls into the window of the plane and taps it with her fingernail.

When she arrives in Milan she is picked up by Ifan, a chemist she knows only by name, and bitterly spoken of by Yusuf, which only makes her feel safer because if Yusuf is resentful of his talents then he must be worth trusting.

Ifan brings her to an old farmhouse with decaying vineyards and a wonderful view, and she is greeted by the two remaining team members.

Pauline is as stiffly cordial as she remembers. The man, she realises only as she reaches to shake his hand, is Arthur.

They shake anyway, and tell each other _it's good to see you_. Ariadne wonders if Arthur hears the _alive_ she silently tacks onto the end of hers.

They have three weeks.

Arthur isn't quite gaunt. She reminds herself of this every morning when she wakes up in her dusty bedroom and comes downstairs to find coffee and pastries on the kitchen table, and the sharp boned, thin skinned man she keeps calling Arthur sits with his laptop in stony silence.

Arthur isn't gaunt, but he's getting close to it. Something has disappeared, and she can't bear to bring it up, because it's no coincidence. She's never believed in them.

(If someone had told her on the Fischer job that Arthur and Eames were sleeping together, she'd have scoffed, then laughed, then nodded and probably said something like _of course they are_.)

There isn't anything to ask, really, so every morning when she opens her mouth the silence gets stuffed with pastry and washed down with coffee that scalds her tongue.

Until the twelfth morning, when the silence lasts longer, and the pastry hovers halfway to her mouth, and Arthur's furrowed brow twitches.

'We were in Kaunas, Lithuania,' he says without looking up from his laptop. The glow casts an ugly white-blue glare that deepens the shadows over his skull. 'We were set up. Sold out. Or both. Whatever.'

Ariadne puts the pastry back and wipes the crumbs from her fingers on her jeans. Her hair is still wet from her shower, and water trickles down her spine like sweat.

She cradles her coffee but doesn't drink it this time. She just sits, and spreads out her papers in the kitchen instead of taking them to the next room as usual, and lets the grief spill out of her in long, measured breaths.

After a few minutes, Arthur speaks again. This time there's a bit of anger somewhere in the cold, lazy boredom.

'He fucking hated the cold.'

.

.

Arthur doesn't dream about Eames.

For a while he thought it was a sign of his lacking affection. Cobb had loved Mal so much her shade had literally torn through his subconscious, because he couldn't hold back the love he had for her.

But when one night he caved into his fears and picked up the phone, Cobb told him it wasn't the love but the guilt that tore him apart so fiercely, and that made sense, so Arthur stopped worrying about it and stopped drinking so much damn Irish whiskey, too.

Arthur stopped dreaming naturally a while ago, which used to itch at him but now it's a safety net.

Arthur has his own PASIV, but he doesn't dive into it every night for hours, reliving the past or building a fictitious future, or even lingering in a stagnant present. When he does dream on the job sometimes he thinks he can feel the forger's presence, and could find him lurking in a dark corner if he wanted to.

He doesn't want to.

Cobb thinks Arthur's stalling a crash, and when it comes he'll burn so hard he won't ever come back from it.

Maybe he is.

Regardless, for now Arthur doesn't dream about Eames.

In fact, very little about Arthur's life has changed since Eames died folded in his arms on the floor of an abandoned warehouse in Lithuania.

(Except for everything, of course.)

.

.

 _If you died, it would be as if all my bones were removed. Nobody would know why, but I would collapse._

.

.

The last thing Eames says to Arthur is _couldn't have – lost you. Sorry. True._

When he dies, it's with a whine in his throat and his left hand fisted in Arthur's shirt. When his fingers finally slacken his elbow thumps on the floor, a dull weight, and Arthur cries for sixty seconds.

Then he reaches with shaking, throbbing fingers to Eames' face, traces the dead lines of his skin, and pulls his eyelids closed.

.

.

When Yusuf calls, Jacob answers the phone.

Ariadne has been scowling at her blueprints for almost three hours, grunting every time a cup of coffee is placed in front of her. She mutters when the ringing interrupts her train of thought, and is grateful when Jacob picks it up and takes it to another room before answering.

She's never done a long distance job before. She hadn't thought it would be so different, being so far away from the other team members. Would in fact have been easier, she thought. She could work all day, call her extractor every time she hit a snag, and still go to bed with Jacob every night.

Apparently not. Apparently, those little interventions and the hovering extractor and a point nagging at her for updates every quarter hour is more useful than she appreciated, because it's almost impossible to get into the mark's head without the rest of the team bouncing ideas like tennis balls around the room.

'Ariadne, it's for you,' Jacob says.

She hadn't heard him come back into the room, and she looks up, distracted, almost knocking her coffee off the table.

'Yes. I'm busy,' she says sharply, and moves her cup to a safer place before returning to her work.

'No, Ariadne,' Jacob says, thrusting the phone in her face. 'Seriously. You need to take this.'

There's a hard edge to his voice that prickles over Ariadne, and she sits up straighter, taking the phone delicately.

'Hello?' she says.

' _Ariadne, why is a young man answering your phone_?' asks a concerned, frantic voice.

'Yusuf? It's – he's my boyfriend. Why are you calling this number?'

She knows why, technically. She had given it to him in case of an emergency. She hadn't ever considered the possibility need would arise, though.

' _I wanted to tell you before someone else did. You're working with Nelson Barnes, aren't you_?'

She doesn't bother asking how he knows. She's grown accustomed to people knowing more of her business than she'd like.

She knows Arthur, after all.

'Yes, I am. Tell me what?' she demands.

She's twitching her pencil in her hand. Jacob lingers close, pretending to be looking at her blueprints.

' _Eames is dead_ ,' he says, so quickly she almost misses it. ' _I thought you should know before word got around. Arthur was with him_.'

'Yusuf,' Ariadne chokes, but the words are lost in her chest, which is starting to cave in. She reaches out blindly, pencil dropping to the table, and grabs Jacob's arm. Her fingers dig into his flesh, and he tries to tease them loose but she grips tighter and pulls him closer, to feel his warmth.

' _I have to go. I'm sorry_.'

The phone drops from her hand and Jacob crouches to her level, clasping her trembling fingers with his own.

'What's happened?' he asks gently.

His big chestnut eyes are full of concern, and he strokes her face and wipes away tears she hadn't felt spill over her cheeks, and her breathless lungs squeeze inside her, so that she buckles and falls face first into the junction of his throat, where she can feel his warm skin and his very alive pulse.

'Ariadne,' Jacob gasps. His hands are in her hair, smoothing over her back. 'Ssh, it's ok, you're ok.'

Ariadne laughs at that, wet and angry and empty.

Of course she's ok.

.

.

 _Couldn't have – lost you. Sorry. True._

Goddamn you, Eames, you're a selfish bastard.

.

.

When two weeks pass without word, Cobb calls Saito. Their exchanges over the past three years since they parted ways at LAX amount to less than half an hour of conversation, but Saito is as attentive as if they'd enjoyed weekly phone calls when his secretary patches him through.

' _Mister Cobb_ ,' he says in a light, wary tone. ' _I suppose you are calling regarding the whereabouts of our mutual associate_.'

Cobb doesn't ask how Saito knows. He's never asked, but he knows Eames and Saito kept in touch. He heard about the Takido heist in Beijing, and the one in Seoul, and of Mr. Saito's subsequent windfall. And he knows that wherever Eames goes, the phantom trace of Arthur has never been far.

'Do you know where he is?' Cobb asks without pretence, because Saito is a businessman and because Cobb has had enough of waiting. It's generally for the best to leave political foreplay to the marks and the clients when you're delving into minds like miners in a coal shaft.

' _I know he isn't interested in being found_ ,' Saito replies delicately.

'Mister Saito, with all due respect I have known Arthur a lot longer than you have. If you know where he is, and have any regard for his wellbeing, you'll tell me.'

Saito is silent. Cobb rubs his jaw hard, pulling at the stubble he always leaves to grow on the weekends.

There's a slight intake of breath on the other end of the line, and Cobb feels his insides close up tight.

' _He is in Marrakesh, Mister Cobb_.'

He puts down the phone before Cobb can thank him, and Cobb realises with a twinge of regret he will probably have to wait a long while before contacting him again.

He wonders briefly just how well Mister Saito came to know Mister Eames, and how much he liked him.

He hears again the clipped tone, imagines the hard slam of the phone as it was put down. Still, he doesn't linger on the possibility of Saito feeling an ounce of grief for the loss of another underworld criminal.

Instead, Cobb opens his laptop and books a flight to Morocco.

He's about to leave, has already kissed James goodbye for the umpteenth time with promises he'll be back soon and told him and his sister to be good for their babysitter, when his phone rings.

It's Ariadne, her voice shaking as he hasn't heard since deep in the layers of Robert Fischer's mind.

He doesn't have time to comfort her. He has a flight to catch.

.

.

The first time they meet they're in London.

They meet because Arthur has been tailing Eames, scouting him for a job. He tails him because he's an elusive bastard whose reputation exploded from the new guy to the best in less than six months.

Arthur watches Eames pickpocket seven people before following him into a pub.

It's creaking and half full and dark with heavy air. The sleek old wood of the bar looks as if it's been lacquered with whiskey, and sitting at the far end of it is Eames. Eames, who has a two tumblers of what look like whiskey next to him.

Eames, who is looking directly at Arthur with a curious stare and a blank expression that might be an invitation but could just as easily be a threat.

Arthur approaches, his hands spread unthreateningly just a little away from his sides as he takes a seat beside his mark.

The first thing Eames ever says to Arthur is:

'Can I help you, darling?'

And Arthur replies:

'It seems you're a public menace, Mr Eames.'

Eames is wearing a pair of pale, worn jeans, a crumpled shirt and a weather beaten leather jacket that might once have been rather lovely. There are several days of stubble covering his jaw, the dark shadow of a bruise beneath his left eye, and his hair is rumpled and long. He's something of an attractive mess, but he's staring at Arthur with the smug air of a lazy, sun warm cat, and something inside Arthur curls with resentment.

'Arthur,' Eames announces, as if he's been expecting a visit.

This Arthur did not expect, and the resentment slips further through his bloodstream into frustration.

'Don't be angry, darling,' Eames continues before he can reply.

The first time they meet, Arthur vows to spend as little time in Eames' company as possible, for the sake of his sanity, his health, and his self respect.

.

.

Later, years later, he tells Eames.

Eames' barking laughter is so warm it glows.

.

.

Marrakesh feels a lot like all the places Dom has ever tracked Eames to, and he almost forgets it's not Eames he's looking for until he finds the crumbling apartment a faint breath away from the many markets of the city's sprawling streets.

It stings in his lungs, stronger than the spices in the air.

He never had personal thievery training, but it turns out to be unnecessary. The flat's front door has a deadbolt that isn't bolted; it has a door handle that is borderline loose.

It is in a darkened, steaming building.

Dom's footsteps feel loud and creaking as he edges into the flat, tattered to ribbons and peeling. There is a copy of The Iliad ripped in half, the ink smudged.

He reaches down to pick it up, but is interrupted by sounds coming from deeper in the unlit flat.

'Arthur? It's Cobb,' he says softly, treading to the source of the noise, which turns out to be a living room.

Through the door the light is blinding sunshine pouring into the open window, and on the floor, his back to the sofa and his legs crumpled beneath him, is Arthur.

He looks up at Dom with glassy eyes and a blank face, shining damp and pale.

He seems incurious, which he has never been, and surprised, which is perhaps even worse.

Or maybe worst is the rumpled clothes, the dishevelled hair.

'Dom,' he whispers, frightened, and it sounds a lot like it's not the name he wants to be saying, or maybe Dom's only imagining that. Maybe he just knows, the way he knows this face, young as if they'd just met, and the twisting in his sternum is as deep as the day he felt two pairs of arms clinging to him as if two years of absence had been a lifetime.

Dom moves forwards through the quicksand air until he's kneeling on the floor, one arm on the stained coffee table and the other on the hard sofa cushions.

Arthur simply stares. Dom can smell sweat and the sour tang of whiskey. The mostly empty bottle is Jameson's, and Arthur's clutching it as if it's tethering him to life.

(Actually, it's tethering him to something else, to someone else, and it needs to go, _now_.)

When Dom reaches to pluck it from his grasp, Arthur flails once, twice. Backs away, distrusting.

'Arthur, it's me. Please. I came as soon as I could.'

'H-How did you find me?' he asks, his voice dry and cracked.

Dom reaches forwards, ready to catch his swaying torso but he holds steady, just about conjuring anger in his face, in the lines of his forehead. He's lost and afraid and it's breaking a piece of Dom's heart he hadn't realised was left to be broken.

'Saito,' Dom replies with an apologetic nod of his head.

'Bastard,' Arthur mutters under his breath after a pause.

He heaves a breath that would probably be a retch if there was anything in his stomach worth coming out, and when Dom inches forwards across the rough floor he eyes his shoes as a wary predator. His shirt is crumpled, the knot of his tie pulled too tight, and there's a crust of blood along the inside of his parted lips.

Dom wonders briefly, solemnly, if this is what he might have become, if not for two little ones looking up at him with bright, needful faces.

(Then he remembers that this is Arthur, and he would probably have been even worse than this.)

'Arthur –' Dom begins, but he gets no further because Arthur is shaking his head and backing away as Dom stretches out a hand.

'Don't,' Arthur warns, fierce, more alive than each deadened moment before, adamant and terrified. 'Please, Dom, don't. Not now,' he begs. 'I can't – I can't –'

His breath stutters, his body shakes. In ten years Dom has never seen even a hint of the animal inside this man before, feral and so full of rage. It was always cool, always collected. Always Arthur.

'Hey, hey,' Dom says, ducking a vague smack in the area around his face that Arthur sends him. 'No, I'm sorry. I just – I'm so sorry, Arthur.'

He remembers how inadequate that word was four and a half years ago. How much it hurt to hear.

He never realised how good it must have felt for others to say, though.

'Please go.'

The words are so quiet, quieter even than the sloshing of the whiskey droplets tickling the inside of the bottle.

'No,' Dom whispers, gentle and without an apologetic nod of the head this time.

'Dom,' Arthur spits. 'Cobb. Please go. Please. Just go. I n-need to be al-alone,' Arthur stammers.

Finally the bottle becomes too heavy for his loose, twitching fingers and clatters to the ground, rolling away with a few sad thumps.

'That's the last thing you need,' Dom corrects with a knowledgeable tone that he knows isn't appreciated even before Arthur glowers hatefully at him.

Which he does, with a fervour that's a bright as ten years ago.

Brighter, emptier.

'Well, it's what I want,' Arthur replies sharply, angrily. With a fire that would burn if Dom wasn't so glad for the heat.

'I don't care,' Dom shrugs.

'Dominick Cobb,' Arthur growls, and a snarling sound of drunken fury rips out of his throat as Dom takes hold of his wrist, pulling him firmly closer even as he struggles, wrestling and kicking with stiff legs. 'Stop it,' he whispers,, gasping for air. 'Please stop it. I can't do this –' he shakes his head. 'I can't – please.'

But he is drunk, and he is weak, and he is exhausted. There is a very good chance has hasn't slept since Lithuania.

Dom tugs Arthur slowly, as tenderly as he does James from a nightmare.

'It's ok,' he says, automatic, assuming. 'It's ok.'

Arthur is less compliant than a six year old, but just the same his face finds Dom's shoulder, nose to sharp bones, and a cry loud enough to rattle their ribcages escapes from him.

'No,' he insists, shaking his head and clenching his fists into Dom's jacket with hard, bruising fingers. 'No, it's not. You know it's not. It's not ok, Dom. Nothing is ok.'

Dom nods, his chin butting against the damp crown of Arthur's head.

He knows nothing is ok. Very little has been ok since Mallorie died, and he imagines it's the same – now.

Eames. He doubts Arthur's said his name yet, and selfishly hopes he doesn't have to be there to witness when he does.

'I know,' he says, every one of Arthur's shivers trapped between his chest and elbows. He makes a vague shushing sound that grates their ears. 'I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.'

Arthur flinches, pulls back. He doesn't let go yet, though. His skin is stretched over his cheekbones, deep shadows as dark as death marring his expression.

'Shit, Arthur,' Dom says softly, placing a tentative hand on his shoulder. 'I'm so sorry.'

Arthur's smile is weak and unexpected. His cheeks are wet, dark eyes red.

He laughs, and more tears clump his eyelashes together.

'I know,' he says, hoarse, unhappy. 'Me too. We're all so fucking sorry, aren't we?'

.

.

Cold. Hands that are so cold they're sweating. Hands that are so cold the blood beneath his nails is freezing.

And wind that howls fiercely, biting.

And thunder like the battling Norse gods.

The last thing he feels is a hand in his hair, squeezing so hard it stings his eyes but he's already crying so it doesn't really matter.

Two hands that feel like five in this cold.

He dies alone all the same.

.

.

(Surrounded by the world, everybody dies alone.)

.

.

When Eames dies, Arthur grieves for twelve days, because two weeks would just be gratuitous.

He sends Dominick Cobb on his merry way with the promise to keep in touch, flies to Seattle, sleeps for eighteen hours.

Then he accepts a job in Baltimore, flies out the next day. The world turns.

.

.

They say it three times in eight years.

Actually they say it three times in six years, because for the first two they tango the viper and mongoose.

(They take turns switching roles.)

.

.

(Quite seamlessly in fact.)

.

.

Jacob is attentive and enthusiastic. Also a bit acrobatic.

The sex is blissful, and when it's not blissful it's animal.

Ariadne splays out in every direction, damp and aching and grinning.

There's laughter lodged in her throat and Jacob, chin dipping into her navel, looks ready to coax it out of her.

'I love you,' he says instead.

It isn't the first time, but it feels as sharp and delightful as it did then. It sears something in her lungs and the laugh bursts free. Luckily Jacob isn't offended, presses a wet, open mouthed laugh into her abdomen in return that soon becomes a raspberry.

She squeals, knees clasped around his shoulders, hands in his hair, and thinks _Yes, this is wonderful._

.

.

She admits it all to him in a Thursday at three in the morning.

'Jacob,' she whispers, precious as a prayer.

'Ariadne,' he replies, voice like butter.

'Jacob,' she says again just to hear him say her name, too.

'Ariadne,' he replies, dragging out the vowels and licking her throat.

Her fingers trace up his spine, and she considers whispering it again, closer to his ear.

'I've got something to tell you,' she says instead.

'What?'

'It's called dreamshare.'

There's a groan of wonder in Jacob's chest that stirs against her ribs. The night is dark, soothing.

'What is?'

'The thing you talked about. The building in dreams. It's called dreamshare.'

.

.

('I've got something to show you, as well.')

.

.

Goodness knows who lets him in the building through the main doors, but when Ariadne opens her apartment door at the swift rapping she feels a thrill of surprise, and she can't keep the bemused smile from pulling her lips up.

'Eames!' she cries, taking half a step back.

He grins, toothy as a shark with eyes to match, wearing a bright green shirt that only brightens her own smile.

'Ariadne!' he replies in the selfsame tone of rich enthusiasm. 'Be a love and let me in, would you? That's a girl,' he replies, budging into her hallway before she can step aside.

'Eames – I –' she splutters, and it's not quite laughter in her throat as she follows him deeper into her own apartment.

He clashes with the soft palettes, and seems to enjoy it as he trails a finger over her pale pink walls.

'Ta,' he hums over his shoulder. 'Ooh!' he continues clapping his hands together. 'I smell something – _hello_ ,' he interrupts himself as he waltzes into the kitchen. Jacob stands upright and alert, regarding Eames' bulk and grin with the wariness of a tiger. 'Ariadne,' Eames says, his smirk following her through the kitchen as she moves to stand between them. 'Who is this you little minx?'

'Eames,' Ariadne smiles, ruefully shy. 'This is my boyfriend, Jacob.' He's in reach of her hand, and her palm presses hard over his elbow. 'Jacob, this is – Eames. He's a friend from – another world.'

The grin they share at her words seems to test Jacob's nerves. His wide chestnut eyes narrow a fraction.

'Good to meet you,' he says, extending a hand which Eames takes with both of his own to shake warmly.

Ariadne's grin widens. Her worlds are merging, completely out of her control, more so than it ever has before, and if panicking is pointless she may as well enjoy it.

'South Yorkshire,' Eames announces, looking delighted. It feels as if he's taking up the entire kitchen.

(Perhaps that is only Ariadne's impression of him, filling the gaps around the size of him as he stands.)

'Yes,' Jacob replies, and oddly this relaxes him. His shoulders loosen, and the brewing expression beneath the skin of his face becomes a calm, welcoming smile. 'Wine?'

He's already taking out another glass and pouring Eames a merlot, which is accepted with delight.

'Please,' Eames says as he takes the glass and sips. Then he nods to Ariadne, his eyes glittering as he takes in the cream cupboards and domestic mess. 'You've told him.'

Ariadne, who has slipped onto one of the cheap barstools that still don't quite fit into the tiny space, blushes.

'Eames – I –'

Eames waves her away over another sip of wine.

'Don't you worry, I won't tell.' he chuckles, looking surprisingly proud. 'Now, I have to ask. Is this –' he points to Jacob and waggles his finger in the vague direction of her very English South Yorkshire boyfriend's frame, 'the result of any pining over this?' he asks, pressing the index finger into his own broad chest. 'Because, I have to tell you, while I'm flattered, Ariadne –'

'Don't be an ass,' Ariadne snorts, her hand finding the small of Jacob's back and tapping up the nobs of his spine.

'How old are you?'

He doesn't even try to sound innocently curious as he sits in an out of place barstool of his own to scrutinise Jacob from.

'Eames, don't do this,' Ariadne groans, banging her forehead against Jacob's shoulder as he laughs.

'What?' Eames snickers through the rim of his glass. 'It's me or Arthur. Your choice. Unless you fancy being Cobb's trial run for Phillipa?'

Ariadne exaggerates her shudder of fear, reluctantly leaving the press of Jacob's side to return to the stove, from which come the welcoming sounds of bubbling food in hot pans are hissing.

'No thanks, to _any_ of you.' She shakes a tomato covered wooden spoon at Eames over her shoulder at she says it, and it drips onto the floor. Eames and Jacob share a look of fond amusement. 'You staying for dinner? Need a place to crash?'

If Eames is surprised by the offer, he doesn't show it. Neither does Jacob.

'Actually, I do,' Eames says with shaky bravado. 'Just one night. Last time I broke into Arthur's Paris place uninvited he broke into one of my places and – took his vengeance.'

Ariadne turns to stare at Eames with a look of wonder, perhaps at his suicidal bravery, and wrestles with the questions that buzz on her tongue.

When she can't quite decide between a demand to know Arthur's Paris address and what exactly Arthur's form of taking vengeance had been, she returns to the stove.

'Ok.' She tries to sound casual. What she sounds is not casual, but somewhere between nervous and positively excited. 'I only have a pullout sofa.'

'Perfect,' Eames says, hopping off his stool and refilling all their wine glasses on his way to the cooker. 'Now, is that tarragon I can smell?'

.

.

There are things Arthur would like to forget.

He would like to forget about Monaco. He would like to forget about the blood that dripped from his nose and into his open mouth when the man he loved punched him hard in the face.

He would like to forget about all the times he failed Eames more terribly than Eames could ever have possibly failed him.

He would like to forget what Eames looks like when he's afraid.

(Eames was never supposed to be afraid, not of anything, certainly not of Arthur.)

He would like to forget about Monaco.

.

.

 _What do you want to hear, Ariadne? That I was there? That I sat there, useless? That I fucking held him while his life literally drained away onto my hands? Well I did. And I didn't lie to him. I didn't promise it would all be ok, because we both knew better than that. We just – lay there, waiting for his last breath. Just waiting for him to die so I could leave and save my own fucking neck._

.

.

(24th March 2006)

(The First Time)

They are on a boat sailing from Ancona to Igoumenitsa.

The sea, tormented by a storm that is little more than a grey smudge on the restless southern horizon, licks up higher and higher towards where they stand at the rails, elbows barely touching. Arthur laughs out loud into the salty wind when Eames drops a nervous glance to the inky depths of the Mediterranean.

'You can swim, right?' he teases.

Eames' scowl seems painted on top of his delight at Arthur's reaction. If he's playing up to his fears for Arthur's amusement, he isn't pulled up on it.

'Prefer not to,' Eames replies grumpily.

Arthur sighs loudly, too loudly, and shakes his head like a dog in a bath.

'We can go inside if you want,' he offers, leaning all his weight back as his hands grip the slippery rail.

Eames ignores the urge to grab his wrists in precaution. Instead he smiles at the young, wind chafed face staring back at him, pink and damp with sea spray. He looks younger than the day they met, hair slowly curling out of its gel with ever splash of the wash that reaches them, and he's smiling at Eames without pretence.

Eames reaches for him.

(Lunges, Arthur will later insist.)

Their teeth clack together painfully. Eames' hands are tangled in Arthur's salt knotted hair and Arthur's fingertips leave bruises on the back of Eames' neck.

It is their third kiss. It is the one that counts, because they are high not on adrenaline and not on Irish whiskey but on each other, on the sea.

'Darling,' Eames whispers into Arthur's mouth, and Arthur licks the rest of the words out of him with a hard, curling tongue. 'I'm a little bit in love with you.'

Arthur's fingers press harder, as do his bruising lips. His smile feels wide enough to swallow Eames whole.

The thought inadvertently tugs a quick thrust from Eames' hips, too.

'You're not so bad yourself, Mr Eames,' Arthur replies, but the words are more groans than syllables.

(He says it properly later, when Eames is sated and sleeping as the choppy boat sways to Greece; when they are pressed flush against each other in the dark.)

.

.

('I'm a little bit on love with you too, you know.' )

.

.

It only happens once.

It happens twenty-nine months, one week and four days _after,_ not that Arthur's been counting.

It happens when Arthur goes under for a test run of a job being pulled in ten days for an extractor called Willick.

He and the architect, a thick accented Irishman called Brogan who is good, but not quite as good as a Canadian newlywed enjoying her long anticipated honeymoon in the Cayman Islands, go under together to test the two levels.

Brogan explores the first level, and Arthur goes deeper alone into the mock up city that looks like Berlin but feels more like Rome.

He's inspecting the opera house where the mark will enjoy Salome with his mistress, who will be forged decently by Maria Clay, the only tolerable forger Arthur has managed to scout in over two years, when he feels a dark, numbing prickle up his spine.

He's grown used to the strange feeling of secret shadows that lingers in his subconscious like dappled sunlight, unthreatening, ticklish.

This is stronger; it pulses through Arthur's veins like fizzing acid, and he stands in the auditorium with his eyes fixed on the empty stage.

'Darling,' a voice says behind him, so thick and quiet and rusty and deep it chokes Arthur like vines around his throat.

His breath catches, sharp and cold over his tongue, and he turns on one heel swift, terrified.

He's wearing the clothes he died in, unblemished, hair golden as the gilded chandeliers above their heads with a smile that hurts more terribly than anything Arthur has ever felt, more acutely than a blade, and deeper.

'Eames,' Arthur whispers, as he did in the dark cold fog of grief that gripped him what feels like a lifetime ago.

Eames steps forwards, pauses when Arthur flinches, ready to run.

'Don't, wait,' he says, reaching out to Arthur but then, bizarrely, seems to think the better of it and brings it back to his side.

'What are you doing here?' Arthur asks wetly around the racing heart now clogging his throat.

'You need to get out now, Arthur,' Eames warns darkly, his face stern, the way it looked in Monte Negro when he turned up at his hotel at four in the morning, fuming, bruised, betrayed.

'What?'

'You already know there's something off about Willick –'

'No I don't,' Arthur splutters, but of course it's a lie, because he isn't arguing with Eames, is he? He's arguing with his own Eames, and how typical that Eames is his very own Jiminy Cricket.

He'd have been delighted.

'Yes, you do,' Eames retorts with a dangerous scowl, stepping closer. 'You need to leave. Drop this job now before Willick sells you out.'

'Sells me out?' Arthur scoffs. 'Sells me out to who, exactly?'

Eames just stares at him, and Arthur curses inwardly because not even in his subconscious can he seem to pin Eames down, his curious eyes and his delicate expressions. He can recreate the spider grey irises and the soft tan skin, but this man standing before him is so open, so vulnerable in a way Eames never was in life.

Arthur tries not to think too hard about what that might mean for him.

When Eames shrugs, pitiful, Arthur shakes his head adamantly.

'No,' he spits viciously. 'You're wrong.'

'Come on, Arthur, you know it makes sense,' Eames says insistently. 'Willick's the only extractor with the right connections in London and the Baltic region to pull off an ambush like Lithuania.'

Arthur flinches violently, crosses his arms and uncrosses them, rubs his hands over his face as if to wipe away the very memory of this man who even without a presence in dreams until now has tormented his every day in cruel, kind reminders.

'You're sure?' he whispers through his fingers.

'Are you?' Eames asks with a slight grin.

Arthur wants to punch him. Wants to kiss him and fuck him one last time, but if he does he knows the battle he's been fighting all along will be over in a heartbeat, might already be, now that he's seen him, knows that he's waiting here if ever Arthur needs him. He takes a steadying breath.

The auditorium seems to hum, all plush red velvet and curtain, elaborate the way the real Eames would have loved, if only to love to mock.

'Why now?' he asks before he can bite it back. 'Why not before?'

Eames' smile grows, tugging at Arthur's heartstrings as he steps closer, keeping a wary distance.

'You never needed me before,' he replies coolly.

Arthur chokes.

'Yes,' he cries despite himself. 'Yes I did. I _always_ –'

'No you didn't,' Eames laughs, smirks, rolls his eyes, grins, all the imperfections of his amusement that Arthur misses like fresh air in a mineshaft. 'You never needed me. You just wanted me.'

Arthur feels empty, too full to fit everything his own subconscious is trying to stuff and re-stuff inside him.

'I still want you,' he says quietly, embarrassed, as if he's confessing to anyone other than himself.

Eames' eyes sparkle, triumphant and sad.

'Tough,' he replies, shrugging.

Before Arthur can decide whether to send him away or tear off his clothes, Eames turns his back and walks up the auditorium, towards the main ornate doors.

'Eames,' Arthur whispers, knows he's been heard, but Eames keeps walking.

Arthur shoots himself awake before he can follow the broad, retreating back, relishes the fierce, hot blast of the bullet's pierce in the moment that precedes waking.

Before sunset he's on a plane to Tokyo.

.

.

 _I seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination._

.

.

' _Don't you dare to presume such fucking nonsense_ ,' he says.

' _God knows I cannot express how sorry I am that you're suffering_ ,' he says.

' _But don't you dare presume to know what I am feeling_ ,' he says.

It's the only time he was ever afraid of him. Ever really felt any raw power lurking beneath his sly charm and silver tongue.

It's probably the only time he was ever allowed to see it.

' _At the end of the day, Mallorie never walked away from you, Cobb_ ,' he says.

' _She died loving you more than anything in the world_ ,' he says.

' _She never packed up and left with someone else for years_ ,' he says.

' _She never, ever chose someone else over you_ ,' he says.

They never mention it again, but Dom can wonder, now.

He thinks Eames forgave him, but he never asked. The civil welcome he received in Mombasa had suggested he'd been forgiven even before relinquishing Arthur from any unconscious bond that had first torn him from Eames' grasp.

But of course he can't be sure.

And it's not like he can ask Arthur, is it?

.

.

Dom likes to think they understood one another in the end, if only for the sake of the memory of Mal's laughter.

.

.

Arthur's, too, perhaps.

.

.

A man's bloated corpse washes up in the Danube just south of Budapest, five bullets scattered over his rotting body.

Apparently, he's wanted in four US states, each under a different alias.

Peter Mowten, Saul Taper, Louis Delaforte, Cameron Willick.

.

.

He accepts her seventh invitation.

By which time, of course, they've evolved into something more like insistence.

Paris welcomes him like a mother's embrace, kissing his face with a soft blossom breeze. Chatter bubbles through the sunglow streets like rivers of champagne, and he is happier simply for the tread of the cobble underfoot.

Arthur brings the keys to his apartment and not much else.

They dig into his skin through his pocket as he approaches, braces himself for all the sights and scents that are going to engulf him when he enters for the first time in thirteen months.

He gets close enough to the see the building, looming and beautiful, before taking a sharp left and walking with a held breath until the Seine is in view.

It's sickly green in the glittering light, big and wide and deep, enough to swallow Arthur and maybe every memory of him, too.

Arthur stops twice for coffee on the long route to their agreed meeting point. When Ariadne had suggested it over the phone, she seemed a little upset at his laugh. But it's an inevitable end destination, and despite his lingering he reaches it eventually.

The bar has been redecorated since Arthur last visited. It's lost its smell of dusty bottles, replaced by the glossy scent of sweetened alcohol to match the clean, clean walls.

It looks very like the sort of place Arthur would want to go into now, as opposed to the bohemian graveyard Eames had first dragged him to five years ago.

When he arrives, Ariadne and Jacob are already halfway through their first round.

Her smile as he approaches their corner table is unbearably cheerful.

'Arthur,' she says warmly, and probably thinks she sounds very casual. She tugs her boyfriend into standing as well. 'You remember Jacob, right?'

'Good to see you again,' Jacob says, extending a hand over the table.

He's less nervous than the first time they meet, seems to fit better at Ariadne's side. Or maybe that's just the alcohol.

'Yeah,' Arthur replies, and for something to do he eyes their drinks distractedly. 'Seems I'm a bit behind. What're you drinking?'

Ariadne, sensing his discomfort, doesn't argue, but inside flops back down happily into her seat and replies, 'Archers and lemonade, please.'

It conjures a faint, genuine smile over Arthur's features, warms him somewhat to see her blush.

'Sugar water,' he mutters just loud enough for her to hear and kick his shin. 'Jacob?'

'Scotch and coke, thanks,' Jacob says, nodding his gratitude.

Arthur can practically feel their bowed heads and rapid discussion the moment he leaves the table, but he doesn't look back.

He waits patiently, tapping his pinky on the bar and staring hard at the three quarters full bottle of Jameson's on the shelf. When the bartender turns to him, he orders quickly before he can change his mind.

He returns to the table a few minutes later with an Archer's, a scotch and a large glass of red wine to find Ariadne smiling bright as sunshine.

They toast Paris, clinking their glasses, and within ten seconds the questions about the origins of the PASIV device burst free from Jacob like a tidal wave against sandcastles.

Arthur, who recognises the glitter of excitement in Jacob's wide eyes and awestruck expression, can feel in his bones that this man is probably going to be in Ariadne's life until the very end, if that look is anything to go by, and subsequently obliges more generously than he might otherwise have done. He was not present for the earliest models of the PASIV prototypes, but he knows the history as well as his own.

Jacob is enthusiastic and intelligent, asking all the right questions to get on Arthur's good side and making all the right insights to make Arthur want to work with him some time.

He wonders just how well he'll measure up to his girlfriend, who is to this day Arthur's first choice architect in the wake of Dom's retirement.

The evening trickles into night time, a dusky haze of steady flowing alcohol and crooning blues coming from the far corner of the room, where a woman on a barstool purses her lips against the microphone like a lover and sparkles like diamonds under the gaze of an adoring cluster of enthusiasts. When Jacob stands to buy yet another round, Ariadne tugs her chair closer around the table, close enough to brush against Arthur's arm.

Her cheeks are flushed, and she looks elegant in her skirt and blouse that she would have insisted she wouldn't be caught dead wearing two years ago.

'I'm really glad you're here,' she says, serious, almost stern, as if the endless pints of Archers and lemonade has fizzled out of her system in a matter of heartbeats.

Arthur smiles and nods, not quite uncomfortable but happy to brisk his way through this particular conversation with an air of graceful indifference.

'I'm sorry there's nothing else I can do,' Ariadne continues, genuine and surprisingly not sad.

For some reason, the sentence is infinitely more comforting that being asked _Is there anything I can do?_

Maybe Ariadne knows. Maybe she said it on purpose.

'It's ok,' Arthur says firmly, not flinching from their staring contest of concern.

'Just don't be a stranger.'

She's definitely telling him off now, and Arthur smiles, tastes wine on his lips when he licks them and laughs, a little forceful, a little true.

'I won't,' he promises, and is surprised when it doesn't burn like a lie.

.

.

 _I shouldn't have left the way I did_ , he says.

 _And I shouldn't have let you think I was leaving you alone_ , he says.

 _You deserved to know I was still yours_ , he says.

Arthur counts his million, trillion stars that Eames believes him.

.

.

Mallorie and Eames are fast friends.

They drink too much wine and laugh very loud, and Dominick tries not to worry about it.

He tries not to watch them dance, slip slide dip, across the dance floor of the bar. Mal's delight at the live jazz band has exhausted Dom's blistered toes, but Eames has been dancing for almost an hour and is yet to falter.

'You're staring,' a teasing voice interrupts his train of thought.

'She's my wife,' he retorts without averting his eyes.

Arthur's laugh is drowsy, dusky with alcohol.

'At _Eames,'_ he replies, snickering.

Dom glances at Arthur, his young smile and neat tie.

'So are you,' Dom mutters, is surprised when two pink spots appear on his cheekbones, spreading until they reach the tips of his ears.

From across the room, Mallorie's peals of laughter pierce the music, and Dom doesn't try fighting the grin that just about splits his face in two, though he doesn't turn around from where they sit at the sparkling bar. Arthur glances over his shoulder for him, and whatever he sees brighten his eyes considerably.

'Where did you find him?' Dom asks, casual and curious, kicking his barstool and sipping his beer and feeling all the sharp turns of the years they've shared since Dom plucked Arthur out of college with a few choice words and three minutes of dream time.

The affection he feels for this man, still a boy whatever the bespoke suits say, is a bright spot that's grown more necessary to the Cobb household in the past four years.

Arthur's brow creases as he smiles, as if he's trying to hide it the way he used to when he was twenty-one, afraid of his own dimples.

'London, after I heard about his part in the Solomon Job with Garrett Belmore. Among other exploits.'

Dom's scrutiny, or perhaps his own train of thoughts, shift him in his seat.

Arthur drains his glass.

'What?' he scoffs nervously when Dom's smirk only deepens.

Dom's never asked, for a variety of reasons starting with _it doesn't matter_ and ending with _he doesn't really care_ , but he abruptly feels less worried that he can still hear his wife's rapid voice squealing while in the arms of another man.

'You're happy,' he says instead.

Arthur orders another neat Jameson's instead of arguing.

'It's good,' Dom presses.

Arthur pauses the bartender on his way, asks what the chances are of making it a triple.

Dom doesn't mention it again.

.

.

(17th August 2010)

(The Second Time)

It is after the Fischer Job. An entire month after, actually.

Eames without a word catches a connecting flight from LAX to London, and from London to Cape Town. Arthur promises himself he won't track him any further, isn't sure he's re-earned the right to really keeps tabs on Eames anymore.

(He never stops keeping tabs.)

Then, quite abruptly, Eames vanishes.

For nine days he is entirely untraceable for the first time in six years, when he first waltzed onto Arthur's radar.

Arthur categorically _does not panic_. He methodically calls in every favour he can with calm, practical logic until he has an answer.

Once he has it, he waits a full day before flying to Bangkok, but after he touches ground and the city swallows him up he can't hold back.

He is prepared to tear it apart if he has to, and scours every bar and poker joint until there he sits, a table to himself – which is lucky, because it's absolutely covered in empty glasses of all shapes and sizes.

In fact, if he wasn't so angry Arthur might even be impressed Eames isn't comatose by now.

As it is, he empties Eames' wallet of Thai baht onto the sticky table, slings most of the forger's weight over his shoulders and stumbles out into the hot, swollen night.

Eames says not a word until he's horizontal on Arthur's hotel bed, a sprawling mass of twisted limbs.

Moving voluntarily for the first time he sluggishly crawls up the bed away from where Arthur is tugging his shoes off. He stinks of tequila and sweat, and when he blinks owlishly at Arthur his eyes are red, dilated, glassy.

'I loved you,' he says in a long whining breath of one word, and it sounds more like an accusation than a truth. His skin is grey, and pulled tight over his tired, stubbled face. 'Didn't have – the balls to get me – yourself. Like I was – I was – you –'

It's unclear whether or not he means to give up on words before passing out. It matters not.

He's unconscious by the time Arthur crawls up the bed to tuck against and around his broad frame, nosing between his shoulder blades. He doesn't feel Arthur's tears soaking his already stained shirt. He doesn't hear Arthur's whisper into the back of his neck.

.

.

('I loved you _too_ much, you fucking asshole.')

.

.

In the city of Kaunas, on Thursday 6th November, a day of thunderstorms so fierce three road accidents alone are the result of falling trees, a bonfire of bodies is built in the middle of warehouse being rented out under the name Karl Davies.

By the time the fire is extinguished, not even dental records are of use for some of the bodies.

Arthur reads about it in an online article two weeks later from a hotel in Maryland.

.

.

'No,' Yusuf says before he can even open his mouth, before the door of the shop has even clattered closed behind him.

'I'm not –' Arthur begins, hands raised in surrender, palms open.

There are shadows beneath his eyes and he's thinner than the last time they spoke, bones sharp, holding together a brittle expression of meek offering. All in all, he looks surprisingly well. At least compared to Yusuf's expectations.

'I'm not here for – dreams,' he says.

He sounds different. He sounds more human.

Vulnerability doesn't suit him at all.

'But I need a new PASIV.'

'Ha!' Yusuf crows cruelly, throwing his hands up in the air in triumphant sorrow. 'So you _do_ need dreams.'

'It's not for – that,' Arthur grimaces around the insinuation, repulsed by the accusation, nauseated by its possibility. 'Mine got smashed up in the fight. I've never _not_ had a PASIV, Yusuf.'

'Well, maybe it's better this way,' the chemist shrugs plainly.

Outside, Mombasa rumbles, hot.

Inside, the air thickens like sour milk.

'Even if I was going to use it like that,' Arthur hisses, blushing furiously as he makes an aborted movement with his fist that Yusuf only raises his eyebrows at, 'which I'm _not,_ it would be none of your business.'

'Arthur,' Yusuf sighs patiently, moving around his desk to lean against it. 'I knew Eames twice as long as you did,' he says unapologetically, tilts his head curiously when Arthur manages to contain his flinch to a series of fast blinks. 'We didn't always see eye to eye, but he was as good a friend as I've ever had in this bloody business. I'm not going to pave the path to your self-destruction.'

Arthur hisses impatiently through his teeth.

He hates Yusuf in that moment, hates his kind eyes and his dubious concern for Arthur's motives, as if he's a child, as if he's a novice, as if he's –

'Tell you what,' Yusuf says after a moment's thought. 'If you will permit me to go under with you once, just to make sure everything is alright down there, then I will see about getting you the latest model. An upgrade. It won't be cheap, mind.'

Arthur wrestles against the idea with a scowl.

His hands are planted so tight on his hips they might be stuck.

'Why should I trust you with me subconscious?' he snaps waspishly, turning away, pretending to inspect the many bottles and boxes lining the shelves. Sweat trickles down his back, sticky.

Yusuf sighs audibly, making Arthur's skin prickle.

'Because unlike some,' he says pointedly, 'I won't go poking around all the places you don't want. I will happily be a minor obstacle between you and the abyss, my friend, but in my experience it's a battle rigged to be lost where dreams are concerned.'

He smiles cryptically, with a sort of knowing glint in his eyes that is painfully familiar and teasing. Arthur nods stiffly, the sooner to get out into the blazing Kenyan sunshine, which knows no pity.

'Deal,' he mutters reluctantly.

They shake hands, oddly formal.

A week later, Arthur flies to Moscow burdened with a sleek silver case of unfamiliar grip and blessedly familiar weight.

.

.

The first dream is the most vivid, blindingly sharp.

The last nightmare is empty, muffled and wet, rainforest thick. Sludge that won't clear.

.

.

The phone rings and Arthur answers.

'Cobb,' he says sternly, because this is the third call in three weeks and if he has to repeat _I'm fine_ one more time, or any variation of it, it's going to get ugly very quickly.

' _Uncle Arthur?_ '

Something slick and poisonous coats his windpipe at the pale, tender voice.

'Phillipa? What's wrong? Is it your dad?'

' _No!'_ she cries loudly, a sudden flare of panic. ' _No, no, not that. Nothing like that. We're fine. We're all fine_ ,' she stutters out apologetically.

Arthur relaxes back into the hotel room cushions where he sits fully clothed on the bed, shoes kicked out, surrounded by papers, untouched room service on the desk.

'Ok,' he says slowly, the way he used to calm her during visits to fill in the blank parent space, always under the disapproving supervision of Clémence Miles. 'What's wrong?'

Her breath is quiet in his ear, and then,

' _I'm really sad about Eames_.'

The tone is too soft, the accent all wrong, but a sudden rush of fierce affection for Mallorie Miles' daughter hits Arthur so hard he's breathless, engulfed in the need to hear more.

Of the incredibly select few people close enough to Arthur to convey their apologies and condolences over the past six months, none have even hinted at expressing their own sadness.

He'd not allowed himself to think it before, but he knows Mallorie would have had no qualms about conveying her own grief to him, tears and all. He hadn't realised how much he wanted that.

'Me too,' he whispers, clearing his throat hard. 'Where's your dad?'

' _He's picking James up from a birthday party_.'

Arthur can feel her squirming guilt through the line.

'Phillipa,' he says with only a hint of warning in his voice. 'Does he know you're calling me?'

' _He said I shouldn't_ ,' she admits ruefully, somehow still managing to sound pleased with herself. ' _But it's been ages since you visited and I couldn't just wait to see you again because I'm sad now and I know you are too_.'

A child's ability to grieve, and to pierce through an adult's shadow of disbelief, is unfathomable.

He hears her as she is, a little girl growing up fast, who lost her mother and even for a while her father, who met Eames barely more than a handful of times but adored him all the same, who must have figured them out all by herself because god forbid Dom Cobb explain relationships to his daughter.

Intuitive, compassionate Phillipa, her mother's daughter through and through, but also her father's, single minded, determined, recklessly brave.

'I _am_ sad,' he says with a smile on his face that feels new, a relief unexpected, unasked for. 'It's ok to be sad. It's not ok to steal your dad's phone, though.'

' _I know_ ,' Phillipa trills, remaining unapologetic. ' _Will you visit soon?_ '

Arthur groans under his breath, stares despairingly at the mass of research littering his hotel room, the fifth in a row without stopping.

'Very soon,' he says, and regrets it in a heartbeat.

 _Very soon_ to a thirty-three year old and _very soon_ to a pre-teen are completely different timescales.

' _Really soon?_ '

She sounds more like he's just promised to be in time for dinner.

Arthur's hears a laugh that isn't Phillipa's, isn't Mal's. It rumbles in his own chest like thunder.

'Really, really soon,' he promises.

.

.

(6th November 2012)

(The Third Time)

 _Eames?_

Yes?

 _I'm sorry._

For what?

 _You didn't want me here. On this job._

I want you everywhere, darling.

 _I just –_

What? You just what, darling?

 _Stop that. No. Eames, we have to go, we'll be late._

Tell me. Go on, tell me. Arthur…

 _I love you. Don't look at me like that._

Come on, darling. We'll be late.

.

.

 _His glory, by which whose might all things are moved, pierces the universe, and in one part sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less._

.

.

It happens like this:

They go under, slip the kiss of Morpheus, synthesised, chemical.

They blink. Crackle splatter dream shatter.

They wake, blind as babes and dry as the desert.

There are gunshots. There is screaming.

There is thunder.

Then, silence.

.

.

It happens like this:

Gilbraith goes down as smoothly as Arthur's knife slides into his throat, spluttering.

'All clear,' Arthur calls into erupting storm as the last echoes of gunfire rattle off into the warehouse's grimy windows. 'Time to go. Now.'

Somnacin leaks onto the floor from the mangled remains of the PASIV device. The warehouse is strewn with bodies, most of which weren't present when they went under seven minutes ago.

Arthur stoops to retrieve his gun, is interrupted by one last burst of spraying gunfire, so loud his eardrums ring and for a moment he's blind with adrenaline. A wet gasping breath. He turns as one last hooded figure topples back out of the doorway he so unexpectedly burst through.

His heart stutters as he lunges, but isn't close enough to catch Eames as he crumples.

'Fuck,' Arthur hisses, knees skidding painfully over broken glass as he drops down next to his partner. 'Eames? Fuck.'

Eames' are glassy and full of guilty surprise, his mouth red, and something catches in his throat. A whimper, swallowed. His hands are trembling.

So are Arthur's.

'Stay with me,' Arthur orders as crimson pools out through Eames' shirt, spreading in every direction like a bursting dam of blood. 'You're ok, right? Eames? Eames.'

'S-Sorry,' Eames gasps, the tendons in his neck straining as his body contorts in pain of its own accord. 'Love. Can't. Ahh, fuck.'

His legs kick out in lazy twitches, splashing more blood and for one bewildering moment it looks like he's trying to stand up.

'Don't, no, stop it, Eames,' Arthur stops him frantically.

He tears away the sopping shirt and he'd like nothing more than to joke about how much of an improvement it is to the tailoring, but he doesn't.

The rain cracks heavier on the roof.

'Here,' he says, inspecting the damage; the four very deep damages splattered across his torso, sluggish oozing as black as the marred tattoos littering his chest and shoulders. Close to his heart, Arthur can see splinters of ribcage. 'Shit.'

'Bad?' Eames gasps, licks blood onto his pale lower lip and bites down hard.

'Bad,' Arthur replies, chokes on the understatement that feels like a downright lie.

Through his sopping trousers Arthur can feel at least one more bullet hole above Eames' left knee.

' _Ahh,'_ Eames groans. He's slipping out of Arthur's loose grasp where he lies, body taut with effort and twisting, as if to coil away from the pain buried deep inside his guts. 'Fuck. Sorry.'

'Don't,' Arthur snaps, and Eames' face, glistening grey and red and blue, slacks as the fight starts to drain away.

Arthur blinks away stinging tears before they can trickle of their own accord.

'Go,' Eames whispers quietly between heavy, laboured breaths. 'Just go.'

'What? _No,'_ Arthur growls, lips twisted with refusal.

'Arthur,' Eames begs, body protesting as he is only held tighter. 'You can't – can't know – might be more –' he fights for the words but his face screws up as another wave hits him, and Arthur wants to force the air into his lungs with his own.

'I'm not leaving you,' Arthur says coldly, as decidedly as he's made every other choice in his life.

Eames, the bastard, lets a short bark of agonised laughter burst free from his throat.

'You should,' he warns darkly.

'Probably,' Arthur agrees, but instead of following through he hoists Eames higher up, letting his folded legs stretch out beneath him. His bulk, wracked and tense, is even heavier than it should be.

As he's jostled, Eames hisses something through bared teeth that sounds a lot like _Sentiment._

But then, 'Should've. Years ago.'

It could be a continuation of his original suggestion, but when his thumb shakily finds the hollow of Arthur's throat, Arthur thinks maybe not.

His muscles are slackening and seizing as he fights the line of wakefulness. When his hand starts to drop Arthur grabs it firmly, holds it there at his throat until his thick, slow fingers can take hold of his collar.

His eyes flutter closed.

'Eames?' Arthur snaps sharply. 'Eames, please, don't.'

The thunder feels as close as their own heartbeats. It's an ending Arthur forgot to predict.

Eames' lips split into another rueful, terrible red grin.

'Love,' he announces, like maybe he invented it. _'Ha.'_

It sounds a lot like derision, feels more like regret.

'Stop it,' Arthur orders.

There's a burner phone in his hand, slid out from his pocket. Like everything else it's covered in blood.

It's also the only thing that could possibly tear his eyes away from Eames' face.

Before his thumb can press down, though, a large tanned hand presses over his own.

Eames shakes his head, sad, knowing, resigned.

Arthur doesn't particularly care that checking into a hospital under threat of an anonymous attacker is suicide, but Eames has long held the key to Arthur's decisions, has used it surprisingly sparingly over the years.

'Don't,' he says now. It comes from deep beneath his mostly cracking ribs, too deep for Arthur to argue. 'It's ok.'

It is, quite possibly, the only lie Eames has ever told Arthur.

He blinks deliberately, calmly.

Arthur takes in the blood clinging to his teeth and stubble, sees a bullet has clipped the corner of his head, is bleeding freely down his face, leaking through his hair.

Arthur swallows hard, thinks of who in the world wants Eames dead most, wonders if Eames had known when he took this job – if that's why he tried to make Arthur stay away.

'What can I do?' he asks, feeling strangely calm, blissfully numb.

Hot blood spilling out of him like lit oil, Eames shivers, mutters _'Cold.'_

'Ok,' Arthur replies with his practical voice and his practical hands, folding himself around his lover to cover every inch of him.

He's flushed, pale, damp, trembling. His eyes are grey and clear.

Arthur knows Eames has never feared death, maybe not even as a child.

'Ok,' he says again, when there is only rain and crimson. 'Here you go. Better?'

' _Mmm,'_ Eames mutters, and the sound seems to vibrate in his hips. 'Mmm.'

He watches Arthur as he always has done, lovingly, warily, unapologetically.

'Jesus,' Arthur whispers, wants to whisper it against his lips but is afraid to miss one second of that loving, wary, unapologetic stare. _'Fuck._ I'm sorry. I should've – I don't know.'

Of course he doesn't. He did everything, as he has done every day for ten years, but sometimes bad things still happen.

Sometimes people still die. Sometimes beautiful women jump off buildings and others –

'S'ok,' Eames hums, pressing his cheek to Arthur's open hand where is rests. 'Have to say,' he forces the words out, tight and resolute and grating as the glass beneath them. 'Pretty glad.'

It's a blow to Arthur's gut that he isn't prepared for.

'What?' he demands.

Those grey, clear eyes are clouding, struggling to focus now no matter how close Arthur leans, tasting copper and sweat where hours ago there was only musk and cologne.

'Couldn't have – lost you,' Eames replies, and Arthur barely hears it through the thunder. 'Sorry. True.'

And Arthur laughs, hysterical and furious with one arm cradling a heavy head and the other over a sleepy, creaking heart.

That right there, Arthur knows, is the man he loves, shameless and reckless.

And it's time to choose his last words.

'Goddamn you, Eames,' he mutters over his convulsing throat. 'You're a selfish bastard.'

It makes Eames smile.

That's all that matters, really.

.

.

 _If you died, it would be as if all my bones were removed. Nobody would know why, but I would collapse._ _ **Sarah Kane,**_ _ **Crave**_

 _I seen another world. Sometimes I think it was just my imagination._ _ **Terrence Malick, The Thin Red Line**_

 _His glory, by which whose might all things are moved, pierces the universe, and in one part sheds more resplendence, elsewhere less._ _ **Dante, Paradiso**_


End file.
